Almond Cream

Almond cream, poured into a store-bought pastry shell and baked until set gives you an almost instant dessert of infinite variety.

You vary it by putting some sort of filling between it and the pastry. This can be fresh, frozen or stewed fruit, or even ordinary jam (jelly in the US).

The result is a delicious tart that can be served either hot or cold, with or without cream, or on a fruit coulis* of some kind.

The ingredients are:

+ 55g (2oz) butter
+ 55g (2oz) sugar
+ 55g (2oz) almond meal
+ 55g (2oz) flour
+ 2 eggs

Put the first two ingredients into a food processor and whiz to a smooth paste. If you did this with a wooden spoon (and you can) it would be called 'creaming'.

Add all the remaining ingredients in one go and blitz until smooth. Your cream is now ready for use.

This will cook quite comfortably in a medium to hot oven, which means that you can set the temperature for the pastry and the cream will just play along. It's ready when it's set.

* a coulis is a sauce made from strained fruit juice that has been thickened, usually with sugar.

First published on Qassia